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Columns - Commentary
 Tom
Purcell: For
Valentine's Day - When There Was Romance - Hey, pallie, what
the heck happened to romance?
I use the word "pallie" in deference to the great Dean
Martin. Last summer, just before the annual Dean Martin Festival
in Dino's home town of Steubenville, Ohio, I decided to compare
today's hits with his.
I started with the No. 1 song
on Billboard Magazine's Hot 100 list, "Hips Don't Lie"
by Shakira. This song was a hit, no doubt, because of its eloquent
lyrics:
Nobody can ignore the way you
move your body, girl
And everything so unexpected -- the way you right and left it
So you can keep on shaking it
No. 2 on the list was "Ridin'"
by Chamillionaire, a rap performer. Here's a little taste of
that song's poetry:
Tippin' down, sittin' crooked
on my chrome
Bookin' my phone, tryin' to find a chick I wanna (slang expletive)
No. 3 on the list was "Promiscuous"
by Nelly Furtado, a song brimming with love and affection:
You expect me to let you just
hit it
But will you still respect me if you get it
Ah, modern romance. Things
sure have changed since Dino dropped off the charts. Now I know
why: Romance is dead. - More...
Tuesday PM - February 13, 2007
 Dave
Kiffer: Our
Cajun Sister State - I read recently that the most popular
baby names in Alaska are "Madison" for girls and "Ethan"
for boys.
It seems odd to name a young
girl after either a president or an avenue, but what do I know?
Maybe there are a lot more "Splash" fans out there
than I realize.
The name Ethan has been a pretty
popular one for boys for some time, so that is no surprise.
Once upon a time just about
every young child was named either John or Mary, so at least
we are progressing beyond that.
After all, it could be like
the 1890s when an awful lot of kids were being saddled with Gertrude
and Horace.
Naming someone Gertrude or
Horace in 2007 would lead to a later-in-life lawsuit for "parental
malpractice."
I was curious about baby names
in other states so I checked with the Social Security Administration
website to see where Alaska's name choices ranked. - More...
Monday PM - February 12, 2007
 Jason
Love: Computer
Hell - It was a typical day -- chop wood, carry water --
when I got a pop-up from Symantec: "Your Norton virus definitions
are about to expire. Renew now?"
I thought virus definitions
went on forever like the giant tortoise or Dick Clark. Evidently,
they have to be renewed any time Norton demands "payment."
The Internet was such a good
idea on paper. Now we tiptoe through the day afraid of spyware
and macros and worms -- oh, my. It's enough to make you become
a plumber.
What do hackers get out of
the virus anyway? They're not even around to enjoy their evil.
It's like ordering a pizza to someone else's house:
"I'll bet they're opening
the door right now ... I'll just bet ..."
Norton promotes itself the
same way our government does: "malicious threat" ...
"security risk" ... "buy this or die!" Norton
is even now spreading new viruses should we fail to pony up.
So it goes. - More...
Monday PM - February 12, 2007
 Ann
McFeatters: An
unrealistic budget - President Bush's spending blueprint
for the rest of his term is what his father used to call "voodoo
economics" - cut taxes, increase spending on the military
and balance the budget - with a lot of devils in the details.
Nobody is going to spend much
time on the president's massive $2.9 trillion budget proposal
as written. With Democrats controlling, barely, the House and
Senate, it's proverbially dead on arrival. But it is important
to look at the budget because this once-a-year exercise tells
us where Bush wants to take us for the next two years.
The thinking in the White House
is that if unrealistic budgeting was good enough for Ronald Reagan,
it's good enough for his wannabe clone. But Reagan's sleight-of-hand
figuring gave the country enormous deficits. Also, George W.
Bush is not Ronald W. Reagan. This president has already spent
his political capital on Iraq.
This White House is to be congratulated
for finally including the cost of the war in Iraq in its budget
- instead of sending up off-budget spending resolutions, as it
has been doing. (We will have spent more for the wars in Iraq
and Afghanistan than we did in Vietnam, even adjusted for inflation.)
But the buck stops there. - More...
Monday PM - February 12, 2007
 Dan
K. Thomasson: Communities
bear burden of Iraq - Not long ago while perusing reports
of the daily slaughter in Iraq, I noticed that one of those killed
in action was a 48-year-old enlisted man with five children.
What, I asked myself, is a
man of that age with those responsibilities doing in this fight?
We didn't take those men in World War II. Then it occurred to
me. He was either a member of the National Guard or the Reserve.
The recent casualty lists from
Iraq reflect a military problem common to most wars but punctuated
in this one by the apparent lack of professional troops, a reliance
on citizen soldiers who signed up for the National Guard to serve
their states and to be called up to federal duty in extraordinary
times. Iraq seems to be one of those times as the U.S. military
struggles to keep up with the manpower demands.
The result has been the loss
of their services, often permanently, to their families and communities
that was never anticipated when they enlisted for part time duty
in what has been known, sometimes derisively and unfairly, as
the "weekend warriors." These are often men and women
approaching middle age who come from the same locale, not 18-year-old
regular military volunteers who come together from different
parts of the country. The impact, therefore, can be devastating
to their towns.
Former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee,
who is running for the Republican presidential nomination, sees
this as one of the major concerns of the continuing long-term
deployment of Guard troops, calling the overuse of these forces
the result of "a tone deafness" that has plagued the
war planning and management from the beginning. He notes that
in his state 80 percent of the guard has been called to fight
in Iraq, "exacting a huge strain on families and employers
both private and public." The losses to community services
include policemen, nurses and teachers, fathers and mothers.
- More...
Monday PM - February 12, 2007
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